The Enduring Struggle Over Professionalism in English Football from 1883 to 1963: a Marxist Analysis
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University of Southampton Faculty of Business, Law & Art The Enduring Struggle Over Professionalism in English Football From 1883 to 1963: A Marxist Analysis By Hugo Marangos Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy July 2017 Abstract UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON ABSTRACT FACULTY OF BUSINESS, LAW & ART Philosophy Doctor of Philosophy THE ENDURING STRUGGLE OVER PROFESSIONALISM IN ENGLISH FOOTBALL FROM 1883 TO 1963: A MARXIST ANALYSIS by Hugo Marangos This thesis takes a Marxist perspective on English football from 1883 to 1963 and charts the struggle between those who governed, the Football Association and the Football League and those whom they governed, the professional players. This was not only a struggle between opposing groups but also a struggle between opposing classes operating within the society/industry of English football. A struggle that was to endure as a result of the diametrically opposed ideologies each class held about the presence and/or purpose of the professional player. For the purpose of this research the cotton industry was used as a comparator from which developments in English football could be gauged to suggest that professional players had managed to successfully overcome the ideological domination of the governing bodies of English football, thus instigating a working-class revolution. Marx’s prediction for a workers’ revolution may not have materialised for the ordinary working class during the nineteenth century, however, this thesis suggests that such a revolution did occur in English football, post-1961, when the professional players and their Union representatives, the PFA, successfully fought for the removal of the maximum wage and the retain-and-transfer system. 2 Table of Contents Page Title 1 Abstract 2 Table of Contents 3 Declaration of Authorship 4 Acknowledgements 5 Abbreviations 6 Literature Review 7 Research Methodology 21 Introduction 35 Chapter One: 1883-1885 53 Chapter Two: 1885-1886 73 Chapter Three: 1888-1901 81 Chapter Four: 1907-1911 115 Chapter Five: 1957-1963 141 Conclusion 161 References 181 Bibliography 189 3 Declaration of Authorship I, .............................................................................................................. [please print name] declare that this thesis and the work presented in it are my own and has been generated by me as the result of my own original research. [title of thesis] ................................................................................................................................. ......................................................................................................................................................... I confirm that: 1. This work was done wholly or mainly while in candidature for a research degree at this University; 2. Where any part of this thesis has previously been submitted for a degree or any other qualification at this University or any other institution, this has been clearly stated; 3. Where I have consulted the published work of others, this is always clearly attributed; 4. Where I have quoted from the work of others, the source is always given. With the exception of such quotations, this thesis is entirely my own work; 5. I have acknowledged all main sources of help; 6. Where the thesis is based on work done by myself jointly with others, I have made clear exactly what was done by others and what I have contributed myself; 7. None of this work has been published before submission. Signed: ............................................................................................................................................. Date: ................................................................................................................................................ 4 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisors, Mr Phil Palmer and Dr David Gurnham, for their support, wisdom and guidance throughout the duration of my thesis, without which I would never have been capable of completing my research. I would also like to thank the University of Southampton for accepting me onto the MPhil/PhD course in 2012 and for giving me the opportunity to research such an intensely rewarding field of study. The satisfaction and pride that I have derived from this research will remain with me for many years to come. Lastly, I would like to thank my parents, Mrs Ann Marangos and Dr Anthony Marangos for their continued support, both financially and emotionally, during not only the time of writing this thesis but also throughout my life. Everything I have achieved I have done to make them proud. Dr Hugo Marangos 5 Abbreviations Association Football Players’ and Trainers’ Union – AFPTU Association Football Players’ Union – AFPU Football Association – FA Football League – FL General Federation of Trade Unions – GFTU Professional Footballers’ Association – PFA 6 Literature Review The purpose of this research was to ascertain, whether or not, Marxist theory,1 i.e. Marx’s theory of ideology, Marx’s social conflict theory, and Marx’s concept of a modern bourgeois society, is able to explain the enduring class struggle over professionalism in English football, from 1883 to 1963, between the Football Association2 (FA), the Football League3 (FL) and the working-class professional players, their clubs and their Union representatives, the Players’ Union4. Primarily, however, research would be focused on the period from 1863 when the FA ‘first codified English football, exclusively for the enjoyment of the (elite) amateur gentleman who did not play for pay (but rather) for the sheer joy it’ (Harding and Taylor, 2003, p.4) until 1883 when English football was deemed to have been totally misappropriated by the professional players and their employers. Since then the wages, freedom of movement, and overall employment conditions of the professional players in England can be categorised into four distinct periods of time. The first, from 1883 to 1885, when the illicit payment of wages to professional players was first detected by the FA – who in response would suspend those players and football clubs found guilty of such an offence from participating in competitions under their remit; the second, from 1885 to 1888 when professionalism was deemed a legal activity by the FA with clubs free to pay, without restriction, wages to their players; the third, from 1888 to 1961, characterised by the formation of the FL in 1888, their introduction of the retain-and- transfer system5 in 1893 and the introduction of the FA’s maximum wage6 in 1900 – employment conditions which would greatly hinder the movement and earning capabilities of professional players; and the fourth, post-1961, where clubs, at the behest of the PFA, were once again free to pay their players, without restriction, in conjunction with a gradually disintegrating retain-and-transfer system. In order for such a Marxist analysis to be possible it would first be necessary to gain an extensive knowledge of English football during the period in question through a considered and extensive analysis of the available literature. Whether these works were 1 ‘Economic and political theory of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It holds that actions and human institutions are economically determined, that the class struggle is the basic agency of historical change, and that capitalism will ultimately be superseded by communism’ (McLeod, 1990, p.614). 2 The governing body of Association football in England founded in 1863. 3 The FL, founded in 1888, enabled professional football clubs, for the first time, to play pre-arranged matches against one another. 4 The Players’ Union, which sort to protect, improve and negotiate the conditions, rights and status of all professional players by collective bargaining agreements. 5 A transfer system created by the FL in 1893, which greatly restricted the movement of players from one club to another. 6 A limit on the amount a professional player could earn each week. 7 directly cited or whether they were used as a method of expanding and diversifying knowledge they would share equal importance in the overall context of this thesis. The literature deemed most pertinent to this endeavour was as follows: Dougan and Young’s On the spot: Football as a profession, Harding’s For the good of the game, Harding and Taylor’s Living to play: From soccer slave to socceratti – A social history of the professionals, Inglis’ Soccer in the dock, Sander’s Beastly fury: The strange birth of British football, Young’s A history of British football, Brown’s Victorian football miscellany, Bower’s Broken dreams: Vanity, greed and the souring of British football, and Marples’ A history of football. The reading of this literature, on a macro level, would not only act as an invaluable tool to gaining a more in depth, well-rounded understanding of the period of English football in question but also as a means to generate pathways, on a micro level, for unearthing the most prominent and influential individuals and organisations involved in this storied history, i.e. William Sudell, C.W. Alcock, the FA, the FL, the Players’ Union, etc. In this respect in order to gain a better understanding of the FA, why they perceived professionalism to be an ‘accursed weed (and) a serious evil’ (Harding and Taylor, 2003, p.3), why from 1883 to 1885 they handed out suspensions to those football players and football clubs found guilty of engaging in professionalism, why they decided to legalise professionalism in 1885 and why they decided to introduce